Les Parisiennes des Mamansnet: "You gotta have style. It helps you get down the stairs." - Diana Vreeland

[botemp]

Lovers of Parisian style and fashion with a conscious mindset and lots of chatter in between.

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Second Hand Shops

Outlets

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Charity Shops, Dress Agencies, and Outlets

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Consignment shops, Vintage, and Restaurants

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Back in the day I had an aunt who went on far flung holidays to places like Spain and she always brought me back a doll dressed in national costume. They were 'too good' to play with though and had to be kept in the display cabinet

Also back in the day - and don't you dare judge me - my favourite part of the Miss World contest was when they all wore their National costume. Yes I know what you're thinking but the whole family used to watch it together - it was second only to the Queen's speech on Christmas Day.

I did not have you as a follower of Miss World contest Flo love it.

Where do we register petition to revoke Flo's FWR badge? But I remember those dolls, people who Travelled often had a small collection of them back in the day. I always liked them.

@Martinisarebetterdirty that's so sweet that you delurked to say that! I'm still undecided but have a few days so will give it another try on. It might fill a hole, but it might just hang there. And after all I don't have any boots (that I want to wear).

Bo, the untreated wood isn't that nice close up, just a bit dirty pine like. Yes, the marble is pale green. It's been hobby-glued on top so the whole thing feels a bit top-heavy up close. I was thinking that a darker colour on the bottom half might help make it feel more solid and less spindly. :) It was a cheap second-hand buy two years ago and has been waiting for paint ever since! Marble is nice though.

Oh feel free to tell, I regularly fall out with FWR

Anyway it was the only show on TV about women.

That is an EXCELLENT comeback really!

Actually I'm talking shite about TV though. Quite a few soaps in the 60s had loads of female characters. Coronation St was the obvious one. But you hardly ever saw women on The News, apart from the queen. I remember being fascinated by Christine Keeler - I had no idea what it was all about, I just thought she was really pretty and wore nice clothes.

Well I don't blame you Flo, I can't tell you if the recent show about her was any good or not as I was just obsessed with the hair and clothes, I paid far too little attention to anything else

Speaking of embarrassing habits, I was also that child who wanted to go on the it's a small world ride at Disney again and again, I loved all the national costumes the little dolls wore, I guess I was oblivious to the very annoying song, my poor poor mother...

Bani, light green is a tough one, you usually want to go warm and dark or light and cool to go with it but warm and dark aren't the nicest colours and often very tied to an era (poo brown anyone), a warm grey could work, just make sure it's not too purple toned but it'll be very late 90s German in feel. A rich navy might work but it would have to go with everything else and probably feel a bit dated soon.

bani could you use a subtle wood stain to make it look less like dirty pine and more walnut / oak toned? Sort of like CC cream for your table

Woodstain.... I have so many mismatched woods already it might just be one too many. Also I got a bit keen on the idea of painting it.The green IS tricky, I was looking at a nice sage green but I'm not convinced it won't clash/be tonally wrong. Well there's no rush.

Are you being seduced by that blogger/insta brand, Bani, I'm spacing on the name, vaguely Pippie Longstocking sounding in my mind. Annie, Annika, something? My brain is stuck on Anny Nord and then I'm sad again that the boots were for tall people and that's not a paint brand...

Anyhow, even though my paint supplier scoffs at the brand they do have this very nice rich petrol blue with sort of aqua undertones so it's quite vibrant, Aubusson, IIRC, that could work well with the light green, tonal but also contrasting.

I tend to get seduced by pale green. Incidentally today I got seduced and decided to wear a second hand pale green shirt, as is silk is easier to wear as it has that luminous side to it, today there is good light, on a grey day I look totally drain on it if I wear it.

Drain?!
*drained

It just occurred to me that you might be taking about the little table, Bani’s ... green... not clothes ...

My Loewe dress arrived, it's not a stinker, well a bit, it smells faintly of cigarettes so I'll have to get that out. Otherwise really pleased with it. It's too dark to take pics on, but it's lighter in my sewing room so I've stuck it on the mannequin instead. It's a sort of tobacco colour (oh, the irony) and made of wild silk. It looks better on me than the mannequin though . It is indeed backless, even has an extra closure that I hadn't spotted initially.

Considering it was just vaguely laid out on the floor, I feel I've done quite well out of this gamble (smell aside). I wasn't sure if it was vintage Loewe or J.W. Anderson Loewe but it's definitely the latter.

Love the colour bo, and the drape/tie waist is fabulous... once you've got the smell out, I think it will become a favourite.

Oh I love wild silk! That's a pick me up after the disappointing boots! I'd handwash that of course but YMMV on that.

Red - pale green was in reference to marble but I agree with you that it's a lovely colour but very hard to wear. I think that shirt looks lovely on you and I like the idea that it works better in silk. Maybe I should try on some paler stuff if in silk and see if it looks different.

Bo, you mean Annie Sloan? I only know about her because I've seen talk of "chalk paint" and when googling you find her. Her website is awful, you click and click and click and click but nowhere will she describe what the stuff actually is. What is it? That said I am always intrigued by things that claim to be simple and a little flower piedestal is an easy thing to try it out on. But there are other brands ;) Some of the colours are gorgeous though.

Yes, I think I'll get lots of wear out of it, it's very easy and breezy that looks best with flats but still suitable for city life (ie. it doesn't look like I'm wearing my holiday wardrobe but totally works on holiday too).

Yes, Annie Sloan, that's it, I can remember a colour name but not the brand 🤦. I don't know what 'chalk paint' is exactly, I know what it's trying to imitate (the high mineral content paint traditionally used that gives that powder finish which is delivered like a veil of pigment and can be washed off but due to health and safety is rarely used). Anyhow, my paint dealer says it's all shite and you need more coats than you think and if just looks like you painted something wooden with emulsion paint 🤷

Dress is gorgeous bo. Wild silk harvesting doesn’t kill the pupae I think? Which makes it appealing for sure.
There are so many colours I can’t wear around this season and last! Tobacco/mustard/terracotta/burnt orange/muddy khaki.
Uniqlo IDLF comes out here feb, is it the same range as there just later? www.uniqlo.com/ines/20fw/au/sp/
I like the coats, but not sure after seeing uniqlo on the Uighur list in that other thread. I’ve looked up their response, hard to work out.
I have these photos saved from a local upcycler, Denser proper paint not Annie Sloan , at least I don’t want to think of it as similar! we have an old sideboard I think I’d like done once we had a sunroom.

Yes, in theory time, but I'm not that optimistic when it comes to business, I'm sure it's not entirely cruelty free. Anyhow, I've seen silk production in China (wild and standard) and if they do go through the effort of getting the worms out of their cocoons, it's usually so they can eat them later...

Yes, looks like the same range of IdlF, it didn't sell that well IIRC. I think with the Uighur women issue, it's difficult as it's raw material, even they don't always know what they're buying. H&M has been pioneering a responsible cotton procurement program and frequently get lauded for it by even their harshest critics and they missed this too. But cotton has been problematic for a while (also environmentally) and it hasn't been helped by the high street giants pushing organic cotton as a 'sustainable and socially responsible choice' without really stating that but they certainly highlight the shit out of the organic aspect, so they're pretty culpable IMO. Technically it is better in comparison to traditional cotton but linen, bamboo and tencel/lyocell are the better alternative. I don't think they haven't tried pushing those but have to deal with their own shopping base as well who like what they're familiar with, whenever there's a thread on here about natural fibres clothes, cotton is the main focus, it always confuses me as it's the most boring basic thing of all the natural fibres 🤷.

I've not seen Uniqlo's response. They have several statements about slavery and sustainability but none of it looks recent and I can't see anything specifically about Uyghur forced labour. There's a link on the other thread to a response from H&M which I've not read in full but it seems wordy, which doesn't fill me with hope - how long does it take to say, 'OMG we're sorting this out'? I'm going to email them both this weekend and ask them to clarify when they plan to sign the end Uyghur forced labour statement - as M&S have done. I know fashion retail is compromised and we're all complicit, but this is a pretty clear red line for me.

It's very diplomatically written (it just says forced labour, as opposed to systematic violation of human rights) but essentially they're saying we're sorting it, they're cutting all ties with businesses involved per their policy. Some business about BCI, until they pulled out, it's basically a statement of we're embarrassed we're caught out we're now starting the process of sorting where it's gone wrong.

I think this is difficult because it's not really a brands issue at this point. This is an issue with the Chinese government and other governments who value their relationships too much, be that economic incentives or simply economically beholden, China has expanded their soft power enormously and this has essentially silenced criticism at the cost of the Uighurs, sadly this has been going on for far too long already.

It is a huge supply chain challenge. My company are attempting to investigate the supply chain of our assets (asset management) and it’s very tricky, especially when you can’t visit a factory. But in a place like China you can have the whole official structure colluding to hide where the cotton was trucked in from, so almost impossible I’d say. The original report was very clear about Nike shoes but how do you know these days it wasn’t a factory for fakes... (I think Nike would have slammed them if it were so don’t think that happened, but another challenge)

Annie Sloan , they have some nice colours but really I have not been impressed in the past, a local upcycler sells those paints and has workshops. I bought some years ago and painted in a nice enough green a seat/with storage for the hall. The seller of the paints also sold some ‘specialist’ brushes from the same brand and he told me to better go to wilko and get any brush for £2 .
I have had better results when painting with farrow and ball wooden interior paint. I did this one in the photo a couple of years ago. Similar combo to the one you shared times
It took ages to sand the wood, it used to have a dark varnish. I liked it stripped to bare wood, but where it is located it suited better a darker tone and I wanted to ‘experiment’ .

My paint dealer is not very complimentary about F&B either, but I do like the paint colours (but prefer Little Greene in this segment). I think the Annie Sloan paints are popular as they're easy to use, somewhat idiot proof and doesn't require a lot of prep from what I understand, so it makes things an easy day or weekend job. I also thought you could wash it off if it doesn't work out, or something like that. The whole painting of unfashionable pieces of furniture in fun colours isn't really my thing though, I thought we'd seen the back of it years ago but this seems to be one of those things that comes back every couple of years.

Are you all getting the snow storm too? We're expecting loads from tonight and it'll be snowing all day tomorrow (20cms ) and it'll be code red (supermarkets have been emptied ) and a whole week of under freezing point temps 🥶 need to find something easy to watch on Netflix, I'm determined to finish my summer dress and it's just handsewing (but quite a bit of it, because why do things the easy way when there's a more time consuming option 🤦) so some background noise would be good. Any suggestions?

Lupin? I am really enjoying that